Belsat’s new trial is today

The panel of judges for intellectual property re-considers the lawsuit against the independent TV channel.

The journalists assume that the official Minsk has already made the decision on this case and it is not in favor of Belsat. The charter97.org web-site learnt that from the press-service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

Originally the lawsuit against Telewizja Polska SA, which owns the Belsat trademark, came from the owner of a Belarusian company Belsat Plus Andrej Bielakou in May last year.

According to the entrepreneur, his company, which sells the satellite and cable television equipment, allegedly suffered losses due to the similarity of the name and the one of the TV channel. On 27 January 2014 the panel of judges of the Supreme Court denied Andrej Bielakou’s lawsuit, because the claimant had not provided evidence to the violation of his exclusive trademark rights.

At the same time, in five months after that the Presidium of the Supreme Court made the decision to send Andrej Bielakou’s lawsuit against the Belsat TV channel for reconsideration due to alleged imperfect examination of the evidence in the case.

Belsat journalists assume that the fact that the case was sent for reconsideration in five months after the previous decision of Supreme Court’s panel of judges for intellectual property indicated the case’s underlying political cause. In the opinion of the Belsat staff, it is not ruled out that by this Belarusian authorities want to further restrict the rights of independent journalists.

The court’s proceeding started at 10 a.mm. and will presumably last for several days.